Are you %&#$ serious? July 3, 2013 My message to San Francisco cabbies frustrated by the apparent lack of enforcement by the SFMTA,,,, Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: Cab, lyft, San Francisco, Sidecar, Taxi, taxi driver, uberx — mrjhnsn @ 10:56 pm I am a driver and dispatcher at Luxor cab and have been in the business since fall of 2007. When I got into the business I immediately started after the illegal limos and bandit taxis and was interfacing regularly with the Taxi Detail for enforcement planning efforts, stings and the like. Currently I am a director at the SFCDA and we have been interfacing with Chris Hayashi and Eric Richholt with regard to Lyft Sidecar UberX and the other SHITS. We have filed many comments and exhibits in the CPUC OIR proceeding, participated in the workshop and have been working closely with the SFMTA (Chris H), TLPA, and TPAC in our efforts to expose these illegal cab companies for what they are. My twitter feed (@mrjhnsn) is full of links, images and more constantly berating the users and management at these companies and I am a newly signed on class representative in the SF cab drivers class action suit against Uber. From our high level conversations with the SFMTA the plan seems to be that the City Attorney was directed by the mayor to hold off any legal action against these companies until the CPUC makes their decision. Meanwhile the SFMTA, SFO and the city attorney have been working on a plan of action for the moment that the CPUC makes their decision. The plan as I understand it is this: CPUC says that the cities have jurisdiction, SFMTA issues cease and desist to the companies, SF City Attorney and SFO file injunctions to penalize and force compliance with the C&D; the SFMTA will mail personal C&Ds to each of the registered owners of cars observed to be operating as any of the SHITS (Smartphone Hailable Illegal Taxi Services and get me as many license plates as you can); ticketing en-masse of the drivers as they drop off and pick up at known locations of activity (bars, clubs, restaurants) with $5,000 administrative fines, fines that may end up being tied to driver licenses and vehicle registrations (no limit to the number of tickets that can be issued per driver); all of this combined will get the drivers to quit driving for these companies and will likely make the companies start fighting back by trying to go to the legislature to get the law changed via ballot measure or lobbying the state legislators. While all this is happening the city attorney has the legal option to sever telecommunications services to these SHITS and could possibly even use this law (Cal. Gov. Code § 53075. to force the removal of the apps from the app stores or cut Internet access to their servers. Meanwhile…. We (the SFCDA) are exploring getting injunctive relief forcing them to either cease operations or pay vast sums of money, jointly with TPAC and other industry groups. Now keeping all that in mind, I don’t know how true the rumors are about Mayor Lee’s daughter having involvement with LYFT but if that is the case I would be very happy if I were you, reason being, that is direct evidence of corruption and favoritism, the exact things these SHITS are claiming the taxi industry and regulators are and are doing. These SHITS are not long for this world as public opinion by majority is against them (I know this is hard to see when your $$$ is slashed by 50% as a result of their thievery), and having only 20-25 yo tech douche bags as your primary clientele really won’t get you too far in the long run. Cooler more rational heads will prevail and if the entire country is any indicator, Über Black may survive but the other SHITS will be a fading memory like Napster. EVERY SINGLE JURISDICTION NATIONWIDE that these SHITS have gone into has told them to GTFO an cease operations. San Francisco is the only city lagging behind this trend and that’s strictly due to the city Attorney wanting to tread very carefully as these companies are all based here and Mayor Ed Lee quite obviously is the prison bitch of the tech industry, something that may even land him in prison (FBI, and IRS investigators are already looking into the SHITS and maybe even Ed). Keep the faith and stay strong, Trevor PS: ALL LICENSED TAXI DRIVERS HAVE FULL PERMISSION TO REPOST OR PUBLISH THIS COMMENT PROVIDED I AM PROPERLY CREDITED; NO OTHER PERSON, ENTITY, CORPORATION, OR OTHERWISE HAS PERMISSION TO REPOST, REPUBLISH THIS COMMENT WITHOUT EXPLICIT PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR. ANY VIOLATION OF THIS WILL RESULT IN SEVERE LEGAL CONSEQUENCES INCLUDING INJUNCTIVE REMEDIES AND PROSECUTION TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW.